The case against Francis Cuschieri, 45, who in a drug-addled frenzy shot himself and a police officer and threatened to blow himself up with a gas cylinder on 31 March, started this afternoon with a number of witnesses taking to the stand to testify on the events which took place that night.

The first witness was the owner of the house, Mrs Margaret Muscat, who said she took one look at his face and ran out of the house immediately as she had never seen Cuschieri look so aggressive in their long friendship. She said she ran around the street for an hour thinking of what to do before she went to her daughter’s house around the corner and then to the police at around 8:30pm.

Mrs Muscat said that Mr Cuschieri had a key to her house as they had known each other for a number of years. They had initially met when her husband was in the same room in hospital with Mr Cuschieri and they became close friends when Mr Cuschieri helped the Muscats with the procedures to send Mr Muscat to Karen Grech hospital. The accused used to come and go out of the house freely.

According to Mrs Muscat, the door was locked from the inside and the police spent a long time trying to get the accused to come out of the house voluntarily before having to break down the door to get inside. She said that her house was a ‘disaster’ after the whole ordeal was over.

She said that, in their friendship, Mr Cuschieri does have episodes of wild behaviour when he gets agitated and shouts but she usually tells him to “shut up” and he tends to calm down.

Justin Spiteri, the officer who got hit in the leg on the night, gave his version of events. He spoke of being told that the accused was barricaded in a bedroom and that, when the police on the scene were asking him to come out, he was shouting back “you don’t understand me!” while saying that he was going to use some kind of drug, which was not specified.

An officer with a good vantage point from a balcony across the road could see that Francis was armed and setting off small fires in the room he was in. At a point, when they were informed that Mr Cuschieri had put down his weapon, four police officers, including Officer Spiteri, rushed into the room. Two of them carrying guns while the other two carrying tasers, Spiteri was one with the tasers.

About the shooting incident, the officer said that when he was facing the accused, Mr Cuschieri pointed a small pistol at him. His initial reaction was to jump to the side and fire off his taser without aiming it properly, hoping that the noise coming from the taser would scare the man. Eventually, when the accused’s gun was no longer aimed at officer Spiteri, the policeman wrestled Mr Cuschieri on the ground and tried to wrangle the pistol out of his hand.

At a point they heard the sound of a gunshot, and the officer felt an impact on his leg. He only realized he was shot afterwards when he saw the pool of blood. It turns out that, in the scuffle, the gun was fired, either intentionally or accidentally, and the bullet grazed Mr Cuschieri in the head then ricocheted into Officer Spiteri’s leg.

The bullet entered the officer’s leg close to his left knee and then got lodged in his foot. Luckily, it seems that he will be making a full recovery. Meanwhile his other fear is that the accused suffers from some sort of illness and PS Spiteri is undergoing tests to ensure that it was not passed on.

PS Suzanne Muscat, who was the first responder said that, as soon as the accused saw her and Mrs Muscat approaching the house, he started shouting out of the window to “give him an hour” and “I have nothing against you, I know you’re only doing your job”.

His daughter, Amanda, who was also on the scene was defending him with the police and continued to move forward towards the house despite police orders, insisting that he was her father and he would never hurt her. At the end she told PS Muscat, “If anything happens to my father, I will kill you” and it was at that point that the daughter was removed from the scene by police.

PS Anton Buttigieg was next on the stand and said that Mr Cuschieri wanted an hour to use heroin saying that the accused shouted out the window, “I can’t find it!” while slapping his left inner-elbow implying that he couldn’t find where to inject himself.

PS Buttigieg also said how the accused threatened to blow up himself and the entire house and then moved all the furniture in the room to the door to effectively barricade himself.

The officer described the scene he could see from a balcony on the opposite side of the road where the accused had a syringe and, after unsuccessfully attempting to inject a substance in his arm, he tried twice in his leg and then three times in his crotch area.

The prosecution asked for psychiatric assessment to prove that he was of sound mind and judgement at the time of the incident.

It was at this point that a visible agitated Francis Cuschieri could not keep quiet any longer. He exclaimed in the courtroom that he was not insane, and that he takes care of his four children and himself. While speaking to the judge about all the things he has to do but can’t because he is currently being held in prison, he started weeping.

Magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit told him that he should tell his daughter and other family members to take care of his pending affairs possibly saying he could appeal the courts decision to keep him imprisoned to take care of his affairs.

The defence was led by Lawyer Martin Fenech while the prosecution was led by Inspector James Grech. Lawyer Stefano Filletti also appeared as parte civile for Margaret Muscat.